A Skillshare-endorsed visual artist received a direct message on Instagram informing him that musician Chris Brown had posted his work without a single mention of where it had come from. The artist had made the image in question available to download for free from his website, provided credit is given, but Brown failed to do that.
Never straying far from controversy, this is just the latest in a series of online backlashes Brown has been on the receiving end of. Posting Don Mupasi’s visuals without credit, he wrote in the caption: “Imagination vibrate wit me.”
Speaking after finding out of the reposting, Mupasi said:
In some weird way, it does mean my work is actually pretty decent if people are willing to just grab it like that. But at the same time, it’s not a huge benefit to me if somebody like that takes my work and doesn’t credit me.
The artwork is part of a collaboration with a friend of Mupasi’s, who provides the audio to his visuals. What’s worse, Brown reposted the image with a different track playing over the top of it, a tune Mupasi says is “really not the kind of vibe [he] wanted for that piece of work.”
Posting on Reddit, he showed the two posts side by side, being upvoted nearly 80,000 times in the process. Radio 1 Newsbeat has contacted Chris Brown’s team for comment. As of writing, no word back.
I want people to know it’s me who created it. I think that’s fair. If he had tagged me and just gave credit, I would have been cool with that.
All artwork: Don Mupasi / VisualDon.